NYU and Columbia University's IDA-Pentagon Connection--Part 8

Former Columbia U. Trustee/IDA Board Chair William A.M.Burden

IDA’s 1969-1979 Weapons Research Work

A few months after the April-May 1968 anti-racist and antiwar Columbia and Barnard student rebellion, Columbia’s president no longer sat on IDA’s board of trustees or Executive Committee; and Columbia was no longer an institutional member of IDA. But Columbia Life Trustee William A.M. Burden continued to sit on the IDA board of trustees during the 1970s; and IDA continued to work with the Pentagon’s Weapons Systems Evaluation Group [WSEG] to produce classified weapons research reports with subject titles like the following:

1. “Air-to-Air Encounters in Southeast Asia” (Report 116 of February 1969);

2. “Progress Indicators for the Conflict in Southeast Asia” (Report 130 of May 1969);

3. “An Indicator System for the Conflict in Southeast Asia” (Report 143 of April 1969);

4. “Antisubmarine Warfare Weapons Systems Study (Report 168 of August 1971);

5. “Vector-0 Battle Model Prototype” (Report 222 of December 1973);

6. “Main Battle Tank Study” (Report 248 of October 1974);

7. “Vector-2 Theater Battle Model” (Report 251 of October 1974);

8. “Operational Test and Evaluation of Tactical Radar, Bombing Results” (Report 253 of November 1974);

9. “Proposed Methodology for Eliminating the Vulnerability of Tactical Aircraft to Non-Nuclear Threats” (Report 252 of January 1975);

10. “Near-Term Alternatives for the Main Battle Tank—A Comparative Evaluation of Vulnerability, Lethality, and Effectiveness in Small Unit Tank Engagements” (Report 285 of February 1976);

11. “Electronic Warfare Joint Test and Evaluation: Evaluation of the Relative Effectiveness of Electronic Warfare Mixes Used in the Electronic Warfare Joint Test” (Report 288 of March 1976); and

12. “Design Definition for a Joint Operation Test and Evaluation of Close Air Support During Electronic Warfare” (Report 296 of October 1976).

In addition, some U.S. university professors continued be involved in IDA’s continued weapons research development work for the Pentagon. As page 174 of The Superwarriors: The Fantastic World of Pentagon Superweapons by James Canan observed:

  “Student uprisings against the Vietnam War, the draft and all things military or quasi-military had strained and, in some cases, ruptured the ties of the think-tanks with the nation’s universities. They had depended on the universities for faculty guidance and participation, for facilities and for free-flowing intellectual exchange…One of the sufferers had been the Institute for Defense Analyses, the think-tank at the disposal of the Secretary of Defense himself, and of the Director of Defense Research and Engineering, working hand in glove with the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency…There were signs in the mid-seventies, however, that it was making a bit of a comeback…Even though IDA had lost its official claim on the consortium of 12 universities which had founded and fed it in years long gone by, it still was drawing on their resident brains in an unofficial, informal—even sub rosa-fashion.”  

 (end of part 8 of article that was originally posted on ZNet website in August 2018